The delays and cost overruns are piling up for a new plant in Georgia that was supposed to prove nuclear energy can be built affordably. Instead, the companies building first-of-their-kind reactors at Plant Vogtle expect they will need an extra three years to finish construction. The plant’s owners and builders are fighting over who should pay for more than $1 billion in unexpected construction expenses — a figure that could easily grow.

On Thursday, Duke Energy Florida (formerly Progress Energy) announced that the company would pull the plug on its future Levy Co. nuclear plant. And the money the company has been collecting from customers for years — and will continue to collect until 2018 — will go toward Duke Energy’s expenses and profits. (Article and video)

Hey, elected clowns! Thanks for passing a law forcing Duke Energy customers to pay up to $1.5 billion in higher rates for a long proposed nuclear power plant in Levy County that will not be built… This borders on fraud. If our elected officials had not rubber-stamped it into law seven years ago, it probably would be.

Some consumer advocacy groups are ramping up their fight against Duke Energy’s proposed rate hike. On Thursday night, groups including AARP, Consumers Against Rate Hikes and Greenpeace gathered in the North Davidson area to talk about strategy and planning. The groups want to prepare people to speak at a public hearing on June 26 held by the North Carolina Utilities Commission, which will decide the rate request. Their goal is to get 500 people at the meeting, which is at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse at 6 p.m.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) today approved Duke Energy Progress’ proposed settlement in the company’s request to increase electric rates for its North Carolina customers. “We are pleased the N.C. Utilities Commission has approved our settlement in this case. We believe that the settlement reflects a balance between the needs of our company and those of our customers,” said Paul Newton , Duke Energy state president – North Carolina.

On Tuesday, the public had its chance to voice any opposition they had towards Duke Energy and their proposed rate hikes. Duke Energy has proposed a 9.7 percent increase in its electric rates. The North Carolina Utilities Commission is holding hearings across the state to allow the public to have their say. Franklin was the site of one of these hearings — the only one west of Asheville — and people filled the courtroom designated for the hearing at the Macon County Court House Tuesday night.

Marion Mayor Steve Little said he wanted to voice his “strongest possible objection” to the rate hike. “A request for an increase of the size that we see is unconscionable,” said Little. “It is simply not reasonable. It is not fair. We are not one of the big guys. We are not rich but we get hammered.”

Ratepayers and concerned North and South Carolinians gathered outside Duke Energy’s annual shareholder meeting for a teach-in to highlight community concerns. Duke Energy seeks to raise electricity prices to pay for extending the use of obsolete and dirty power plants that threaten the health of people, the environment, and the economy.

Op-Ed by Gene Nichol, director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the UNC School of Law
The poorest citizens in the poorest communities in North Carolina often pay the highest rates for electricity. They are required, in the process, to subsidize the services of others much wealthier than themselves. They also, in some instances, are taxed by municipalities in which they can neither vote nor run for office. The burden of crushing electricity prices thwarts economic development in much of Eastern North Carolina, the state’s poorest region…

Rep. Leo Daughtry, a veteran Republican legislator from Smithfield, has tried repeatedly to curb the wounds the N.C. Eastern Municipal Power Agency inflicts on Eastern North Carolina. “I could tell you story after story of businesses closing down and people having to leave Smithfield because of it,” he says. “Towns can’t prosper because no one wants to pay those bills.”

In a new statewide poll of over 600 North Carolina consumers, respondents expressed both a strong desire for the North Carolina Utilities Commission to help low-income residents as well as their support for cleaner and cheaper energy alternatives to those being proposed by Duke Energy and Progress Energy.

“I believe that it is inherently unfair for utilities to ask their customers, our constituents, to front the costs of massive and expensive construction projects that are not even gauranteed to be completed.”

Republican FL Senator Fasano in a letter to NC legislators

The risk associated with building plants is shifted from utility company shareholders to electricity customers. The result is that utilities have little reason to be cost-efficient in constructing plants. This disincentive to be efficient will lead to increased construction costs, overbuilding of plants and delays in plant construction.”

The John Locke Foundation

“Now, normally, you’d think a bill to raise electric rates on just about everybody in North Carolina would be dead-on-arrival in the legislature – but you’d be dead wrong…Not one Republican Senator has said a word against it…After their electric bills soar, when voters go to the polls looking for retribution they may have to flip a coin to decide who to vote against.”

Republican strategist Carter Wrenn

“…[The bill] sticks ratepayers with the developmental costs of ‘potential’ nuclear units. That means a utility could collect revenue on a nuclear plant that exists only on paper…saddling ratepayers with construction costs for plants in other states, and even for units that eventually get cancelled.”

Environmental watchdogs predict more delays and cost overruns after Georgia Power revealed this week that its nuclear reactors under construction along the Savannah River may not come online until 2020.

On Thursday, Duke Energy Florida (formerly Progress Energy) announced that the company would pull the plug on its future Levy Co. nuclear plant. And the money the company has been collecting from customers for years — and will continue to collect until 2018 — will go toward Duke Energy’s expenses and profits. (Article and video)